The new “Chinese Mythology Mash Up Pack” DLC is priced at $4.99 or regional equivalent and brings a sense of Eastern wonder to the Minecraft Series. Purchasers of this DLC can enjoy:
An extensive pre-made world with ancient cities, huge sculptures and dragons
41 new skins
13 themed music tracks
Special map for the Battle mini-game
The latest free title update for Minecraft adds:
Polar bears and cubs roaming in frozen biomes
Craft personal banners to decorate your domain
Arctic biomes now include igloos
Discover ancient fossils buried in the earth
Farm beetroots and use them to make a restorative soup
New blocks including End Bricks, Grass Path, Frosted Ice, Magma, Nether Wart Block, Red Nether Brick and Bone Block
The Minecraft “Chinese Mythology Mash Up Pack” and free title update are out now on Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
While you were sleeping, your Minecraft: Pocket Edition just got updated, and it’s got some goodies – err, we mean scary stuff – to get your game ready for Halloween. We expected this to be arriving, but it arrived pretty early. The update brings your game app to version 0.15.10, and it brings the Campfire Tales Skin Pack as well as fixes to some bugs.
The Campfire Tales Skin Pack gets your game ready for Halloween. The skin pack comes with 16 scary skins, including the Headless Haunter, Lumbering Jack, the Sea-Swallowed Captain, Ol’ Diggy, and a lot more. Mojang is asking you to share your creations with the hashtag #campfiretales, so be sure to check out the new skin pack.
The app had also been having problems with distributing the special MINECON skins and associated capes. This update brings the fixes so you can get and use these items. At worst, you may need to make a “free” purchase from the Google Play Store, using the code MINECON2016 to be able to get the items into your game.
Aside from resolving these issues, the update also brings some VR-related fixes, like random crashes when entering into VR-mode. If you don’t have the update yet, check the download link below.
If you’re the kind of Minecraft user that likes to try out experimental Snapshots, then today is your lucky day. Mojang, the developers of Minecraft, have released a new Snapshot, and it brings “lots of new bug fixes, and some new bugs” which will be fixed in the next Snapshot.
Overall, the SnapShot resolves issues with Arrows fired, into a repeater, Piston placement issues, Mouse click position issues, Weather changes, and more. As is standard with Snapshots, we’ve given a few of the Bug fixes a look for you below.
Bugs fixed in 16w40a:
[Bug MC-3352] – Arrows fired into a repeater / comparator / jukebox / command block / hopper / daylight sensor that is updating will play the arrow hitting a block noise [Bug MC-4132] – Piston placement issue past 16777217 [Bug MC-67665] – Mouse click position always lags a few frames behind the crosshair [Bug MC-89030] – Pistons warp entities too much (Pistons pull entities in/through blocks) [Bug MC-98093] – Distorted Pistons [Bug MC-106706] – Renamed brewing stand does not drop after being placed [Bug MC-106765] – Silverfish not moving when mobGriefing is false [Bug MC-106826] – Can interact(eat) with cake in creative mode/hunger bar is full [Bug MC-106905] – Rabbits jump extra high on farmland and fence related blocks. [Bug MC-107168] – Weather changes to clear after sleeping with doWeatherCycle set to false [Bug MC-107378] – Unable to shift-click items into non-full brewing stand ingredient slot [Bug MC-107403] – No subtitles for Shulker Box / Llama
There are lots of Bug fixes in this Snapshot, so be sure to head over to this official Mojang blog post to check them out for yourself. Once you’ve checked it out, be sure to come back to WinBeta and let us know how the Snapshot experience is going for you.
Minecraft is a sandbox video game originally created by Swedish programmer Markus “Notch” Persson and later developed and published by Mojang. (Photo : Facebook/ Mojang)
Mojang has finally revealed the latest snapshot update for Minecraft with new items and features across the PC, Xbox, Wii U and PlayStation 4 including the PS Vita.
The new version now includes new mobs, items and even a new procedurally generated dungeon called the Woodland Mansions. Players now have more to hunt, explore and to build as one of the world’s most popular games still grow several years after it has been released.
Minecraft now has more DLC support with new blocks and items thanks to the update 1.36, PlayStation LifeStyle has learned. Some of the new blocks include the End Bricks, Grass Path, Magma, Nether Wart Block, Bone Block and more.
Some of the new items include the Beetroot and the new Shulker box that can be built thanks to the new Shulker Husks from the previous versions. The new item improves the current storage options of the player so they can loot more without having to worry about where they can place their items.
Mojang’s new Chinese Mythology Mash-Up pack is also now available at $4.99. The players will be able to explore “epic terrain” and to see what China has in store in terms of myths and legends.
Besides the new DLC and items, Mojang is also including the new Woodland Mansion. The new procedurally generated Woodland Mansion dungeon includes more mobs and items to loot, Kotaku reported.
Players can now also buy exploration maps from Minecraft’s new cartographer village which show the location of the nearby Woodland Mansion or Ocean Monument. It would help the players find them faster instead of having to search aimlessly in the endless generated world of Minecraft.
Mojang’s procedural generation of dungeons seem to be improving and Minecraft players could expect to see more dungeons in the following updates. Unfortunately, the developers have not yet confirmed whether there will be new ones or what themes they have in mind for the dungeons.
Minecraft players can just update their game through the official launcher to see the changes for themselves. Multiplayer servers may need to reconfigure to accommodate all of the new features found in the new update.
For humans, choosing what action to do next to reach a goal can be pretty intuitive. But for a robot, making even simple decisions can be daunting. That’s why researchers at Brown University’s Humans to Robotics Lab are developing an algorithm to help robots better plan their actions in more realistic environments. And researches have found that video games, especially Minecraft, can help robots learn these important decision making skills.
This product forms the backbone of Mojang’s quest to change the world, one student at a time. And it’s a big piece of how Microsoft wants to make sure that Minecraft, which it got in the $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, sticks around for generations yet to come.
People already have the impression Minecraft is a fabulous tool for getting kids excited about learning to code. Quarnstrom says she understands that impression. After all, you play Minecraft on a computer, and “people equate computers with coding.”
But from Quarnstrom’s perspective, it could also be used to teach all kinds of other stuff — project management, architecture, design, or any number of other important skills. And it has the potential to totally change how kids learn.
“We see Minecraft as something that can be foundational to education,” she says.
Pink fuzzy buildings
The idea of educational video games stretches back decades: Lots of millennials have fond memories of playing games like Oregon Trail or Math Blaster during school hours. But those games were rarely used as part of a lesson plan.
But Minecraft: Education Edition is pitched as a major learning tool, the same way students might rely on Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
During the beta testing period, which spanned 35,000 students in 100 schools, teachers were using Minecraft to teach stuff like architecture by having a real-life architect come in, demonstrate what a brutalist building might look like, and then instantly cover it in pink fur to demonstrate how much materials matter.
Or, instead of assigning a shoebox diaroma of the First Thanksgiving, why not have the whole class work together to build a themed Minecraft world, and then act out the scene? Or build a scale model of the Taj Mahal as a class, assigning everybody a role in its construction? Microsoft will also be offering resources with suggestions for teachers.
Quarnstrom says Minecraft: Education Edition had 35,000 students in 100 schools using it during the beta testing phase.
Kids learn how to code with Minecraft at a Microsoft event.Donald Traill/ AP Images for Microsoft
Kids already know and love Minecraft, its world, and how to build to their heart’s content. That love translates into a much higher engagement with lessons run in the virtual world, Quarnstrom says, and leads to a more participatory, fun way to teach vital skills.
“That’s where the magic happens,” Quarnstrom says.
Schoolcraft
One big challenge, Quarnstrom says, is to make sure that the game stays fun, even when they’re supposed to be learning something. To that end, Minecraft’s signature crates of TNT make an appearance in Education Edition, just for fun. Teachers get tools to gather up students who may go walkabout during lessons, to balance.
It may be a little while before teachers are assigning Minecraft homework. But because the two versions are so similar, it encourages students to keep on experimenting with whatever they learned in class that day, while they’re playing Minecraft at home.
Another hurdle, Quarnstrom says, is getting in front of teachers in the first place. Selling software to schools is an arduous process: Different school districts have different rules for how they buy technology, for starters, making it kind of a minefield to sell at the necessary scales.
Minecraft: Education Edition includes teacher-focused features like a camera that lets you replay what a student just did for the rest of the class.Mojang/Microsoft
That’s where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft already has relationships with school districts all over the world thanks to Microsoft Office, giving Mojang and Minecraft a big foot in the door. Plus, students log in to Minecraft Education Edition with their Office 365 accounts, which means the kids’ accounts are up to Microsoft’s high bar for security.
Going forward, Quarnstrom sees Minecraft: Education Edition integrating with other Microsoft products like Skype, letting teachers do things like have special guest-lecturers in their Minecraft lessons.
In the shorter-term, though, Quarnstrom thinks Minecraft is primed to make a big impact in education. There are more tablets and laptops entering the classroom than ever before, she notes, and teachers are looking to find new ways to engage their students in this digital world.
“The world is ready for game-based learning,” Quarnstrom says.
